Disney Releases `Pinocchio` Video

July 12, 1985|By Tom Shales. Washington Post Writers Group.

Imagine owning ``Pinocchio.`` Until this month it wasn`t legally possible. But Walt Disney Home Entertainment is shipping thousands of copies of the 1940 animated feature to video dealers throughout the country for sale or rental, beginning July 16. This marks the first time Disney has released one of its vintage classics for home VCR sale.

True, ``Alice in Wonderland,`` ``Dumbo`` and ``Robin Hood`` have been available for rental, but although these films do have appeal, they do not have the sentimental status of ``Pinocchio.``

The obvious question is, if ``Pinocchio`` is out, can ``Bambi`` be far behind? Disney spokesmen are mum about what other classics may be released and when. Company policy had always been to withhold them from sale to TV or home video, but a new management has taken over Disney. New managements always like to make lots of money.

It would seem inevitable that ``Bambi,`` ``Snow White,`` ``Peter Pan,``

``Lady and the Tramp,`` ``Cinderella`` and ``Fantasia`` will be sold someday for home viewing. But Richard Fried, director of marketing, says that ``there are no plans`` to release any of these titles at this time.

Still, he won`t say never.

``I`d be silly to say `never,` `` Fried says. Two years ago it was the stated policy of the company that none of the most beloved Disney titles ever would be released.

``Things change,`` he says, explaining the about-face. ``It`s a different business than it was two years ago when that decision was made.``

The business is different mainly in that it is bigger--``rather huge,``

as Fried says. There should be 25 million home VCRs in use by the end of the year. Total revenues generated by cassette sales and rentals are expected to hit $3.3 billion in 1985. The skyrocketing popularity of home video is considered a major reason for slowdowns in the growth of pay-cable TV networks such as Home Box Office.

The Disney company expects to sell more than 100,000 copies of

``Pinocchio,`` in Beta and VHS formats. The price of $79.95 reflects the

``rental surcharge,`` Fried says. Most of the tapes will be sold to dealers who will rent them over and over to consumers.

Earlier this summer the company released another seven sparkling titles in the Limited Gold Edition series of cartoon shorts. Some 610,000 copies of the first seven titles in the series were sold last year. Like those, the new set will be available at $29.95 each, making them more accessible to individuals.

``Pinocchio`` has been released seven times in theaters since it was produced, the last time being last Christmas. On cassette it seems as patently magical as ever, although the smaller the TV screen, the more it is diminished.

Cartoons transfer with greater fidelity to TV`s limited resolution standards, however, and the aspect ratio--the height and width proportion--of a film such as ``Pinocchio`` are much closer to those of a standard TV screen than are modern-day widescreen films. So you are losing less.

The story of a marionette who comes to life and eventually, after considerable traumatic travail, is turned into a real little boy has an inescapable emotional pull. Yet the Disney artists repeatedly snatch the story from stickiness, often with the wisecracks of conscience Jiminy Cricket, who never chirps once in the whole film. This cricket wears a top hat, carries an umbrella and even has toes.

Pinocchio`s adventures include the famous nose-growing scene, in which every lie lengthens his shnoz until it sprouts leaves and a bird`s nest; his brief stint with a traveling puppet show run by a malevolent impressario named Stromboli (``I`d rather be smart than be an actor,`` Pinocchio says upon release); and a particularly harrowing episode for kids, the trip to Pleasure Island, where bad little boys turn into donkeys that are sold to the salt mines.

Finally, the aptly named Monstro the Whale gives the film its dazzlingly executed finale. The whale has swallowed not only Pinocchio`s father Gepetto, who looks a little like Walter Cronkite, but also Gepetto`s pet cat and goldfish. The ending is a killer. And a joy to behold.

Now it can all be had and held on videotape, warm and lustrous and bursting with Technicolor. In the cricket`s song, ``When You Wish Upon a Star,`` he sings that fate, being kind, can grant people ``the sweet fulfillment of their secret longings.`` For thousands and maybe millions of people, the home video release of ``Pinocchio`` will do just that. It is sweet fulfillment indeed.